The Aung family with me outside the Hamilton home that rise 42% in value over 7 months, making it unaffordable for them.

The Aung family have beaten the odds.

As a refugee family from Myanmar, they have worked hard over the last four years to build a settled future for their three daughters in Hamilton.

Mr Aung works long hours as a sheet metal worker, Mrs Aung works evenings as a cleaner and the girls are doing well at local schools. They have all learned English and are loved by their neighbours.

The New Zealand Government has supported them too. A modest 3-bedroom state house has been their home for four years.

Last year, Housing New Zealand wrote to them saying their home was “surplus to requirements” and offering them the opportunity to buy it.

Hang on a minute! Doesn’t Paula Bennett maintain that they are only selling houses that are the wrong size, in the wrong place where people need to be housed?

This house is perfect for the Aung’s to rent from Housing NZ, so how come it is “surplus.”? It’s in a nice area of Hamilton and I see a needy family every week who would love to rent that house.

Anyway, the Aungs were excited by the idea of being able to buy their home which was valued at $315,000 in November 2015.

It would be tough, but they could afford it if Mr Aung could access his KiwiSaver account to help with the deposit. He would have to wait a few months to become eligible to do this.

When they went back to Housing NZ in July to start discussions on the purchase, this modest house had increased in value by a massive 42% to be worth $450,000 even though no improvements had been made to it.

This put it completely outside of their reach.

National’s wilful inaction on the housing crisis has crushed their dream.

Now here’s the stinger – the house is still considered by Housing NZ to be “surplus” even though there is a family living in it. The family fears their home will be sold to a property speculator and they will be left out in the cold.

And they have reason to be fearful. Coincidentally (yeah, right) MSD have recently conducted a tenancy review to see if the family is still eligible for social housing.

Even though they were both employed on the minimum wage and they have 3 daughters to support and pay market rent to Housing NZ – they face eviction from their home.

How convenient.

This looks to me to be the sneaky way that National is once again flogging our state housing stock off to private investors.

It’s more cunning than it was back in the 90’s, but the result is still the same. State houses built by taxpayers to house the needy, get sold to the greedy for profit.

Rust never sleeps.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/09/24/hamilton-refugee-family-story-highlights-privatisation-of-state-housing/feed/23Pay Equity – What’s Taking So Long?https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/08/13/pay-equity-whats-taking-so-long/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/08/13/pay-equity-whats-taking-so-long/#commentsFri, 12 Aug 2016 22:29:08 +0000http://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=74726
A ground-breaking tripartite recommendation establishing the principles of pay equity in New Zealand should be accepted by the Government any day now.

Thanks to the tenacity of the former Service and Food Workers Union – now part of E Tu – and delightful determination of rest home carer Kristine Bartlett, the principles have been developed at the direction of the Employment Court.

Employers, union and Government representatives have worked over 6 months to agree on the comprehensive principles which will guide collective bargaining and set-up a process for claims to be lodged through the court where negotiations fail to achieve equal pay.

The working party was chaired by “Governer General-elect” Dame Patsy Reddy.

The resulting document bears a striking resemblance to the concepts established in the Pay Equity Act which Labour passed in 1990 – only to have it repealed in 1991 by an incoming National Government.

How bitter-sweet it would be to have the current Government correct that act against the women of Aotearoa-New Zealand.

The Government has been considering the document for a few months now and it is hard to understand what the hold-up is, given the parties spent a solid 6 months agreeing how to resolve the problem of people in female-dominated occupations being paid less than what the work would worth if it was done by a male-dominated workforce.

The Government must implement the document as delivered – anything less would amount to political interference against the interests of women and their families.

That’s why the decline in our reputation under this Government and the pattern of fraud unfolding in the Transport portfolio is deeply disturbing.

Last Thursday I exposed an allegation of serious fraud at the highest management levels in the Ministry of Transport. General Manager Organisational Development Jo Harrison is being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office over several hundred thousand dollars of public money going missing.

Last week, a damning report into the driver licensing regime showed serious holes in the processes which allowed fraudulent licenses to be issued. Ten high risk issues were found in our driver licensing regime at a time when our road toll is soaring.

Last year, Transport Minister Simon Bridges was himself under scrutiny for his infamous “ bridges bribe”, where he made a Ministerial announcement to double-lane bridges in Northland in an attempt to use public money to win the by-election. Still, they lost.

Maybe this is the reason he’s staying silent on the fraud issues in Transport?

Because several hundred thousand dollars of public has gone missing at the highest levels in his Ministry and the Minister is nowhere to be seen.

An unknown number of drivers, including truck drivers, have been let loose on our roads without sitting a driving test ……..and again, the Minister has nothing to say on this major matter of public safety.

In both instances, the fraud was uncovered by other parties – One News outed the alleged driver licence fraud and Labour exposed the alleged Ministry fraud.

And yet Simon Bridges must have known about the Ministry fraud for months.

The Ministry says it “stood down” Jo Harrison in April and they would have been briefing Bridges weekly on relevant issues.

So why did the public no nothing about it until July?

In the interests of New Zealand and our precious status Simon Bridges must come clean and reveal what he knows and when he knew it.

Sue Moroney MPSpokesperson for Transport Spokesperson for ACC Associate Spokesperson for Workplace Relations and Safety Hamilton based Labour Member of Parliament

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/07/25/come-clean-simon-bridges/feed/47Should the Financial Veto be Allowed?https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/07/04/should-the-financial-veto-be-allowed/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/07/04/should-the-financial-veto-be-allowed/#commentsSun, 03 Jul 2016 22:29:21 +0000http://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=73418
If I had to choose a Mastermind topic right now I would be torn between Paid Parental Leave; Kiwi music 1960-2005 and Standing Orders Associated with the Use of Financial Veto.

I’m surprised to find myself somewhat of an authority on the financial veto – this certainly wasn’t by choice! But four years ago (April 2012)

Finance Minister Bill English threatened to use one on our proposal to extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks. Three weeks ago he finally did it.

Last week we had the bizarre result of that decision when, for the first time in our Parliament’s history, a Bill was debated a third and final time and no vote was allowed at the end of the debate.

If a vote had been allowed, then the Bill would have passed.

People might be surprised to hear that I do think there is a place for the use of a financial veto in MMP Parliaments. After all, it is a feature of MMP that Minority Governments can and do exist and they should be able to execute their programme through the Treasury benches.

However MMP also means that Parties elected to represent the views of the people, must be able to do so even if that defeats the view of a minority Government.

I believe that last-minute amendments that do impact on the Crown accounts but have not faced full select committee scrutiny should face the prospect of a veto from the Government.

But I also believe there are circumstances under which they should never be allowed.

In my view the financial veto should NOT be allowed when:

1. The measure has been scrutinised by a select committee and ;

2. The majority of public submissions have been in favour of the measure and ;

3. Official costings have been obtained to inform MPs on their vote.

Despite my request to do so, the National Party MPs on the select committee refused to put the agreed official costings in the report back to the House on my Bill. They then spent the next six weeks making up figures to exaggerate the cost and muddy the waters – that is not democracy.

I also think Parliament needs to define what “more than a minor impact” is on the Crown accounts, as this is the criteria the Government needs to meet in issuing a financial veto at present.

The way the Standing Orders apply at present mean the Minister of Finance can issue a financial veto on a measure that costs just ten bucks without having to show that it is “more than minor.”

For the record, my Bill would have cost just 0.7% of the NEW spending for Budget 2016 and 3.6% of the NEW spending planned by National for 2017. At full implementation it would cost 0.03% of the $3b worth of tax cuts John Key wants. Is that more than minor? I don’t think so.

I feel a submission to the Standing Orders committee coming on and I’m keen to hear your views.

I believe in the collective wisdom of people and the importance of democratic participation but it is easy to get disheartened about what appears to be an apathetic public fed a diet of reality TV and Government spin.

Every once-in-a-while, my faith in collective wisdom is rewarded.

Here is one such occasion.

Think back to Easter 2012 – NZ was still struggling with the effects of the global financial crisis and the rhetoric was thick with austerity-speak.

We all had to tighten our belts (although spending on tax cuts that favoured those on the highest incomes were a good idea, of course!).

In the midst of this environment, on the Thursday of the Easter weekend, my member’s bill extending paid parental leave to 26 weeks was drawn out of the ballot.

I still remember the moment I was informed.

I was meeting with Women’s Refuge who were detailing how recent Government legislation and policy were making life even more difficult for the victims of domestic violence they work with. From the 90 day ‘fire at will’ law to the rationing of state housing, it was all a grim picture for women.

And then there was a knock at the door and an announcement that my bill had been drawn.
It was as if a ray of sunshine had burst into the room – Parliament would soon be debating a measure that would be positive for women, rather than detrimental.

I knew Peter Dunne was on public record as being a supporter of extending paid parental leave when my Bill had entered the ballot a few years earlier. Things were about to get interesting.

The Government was facing its first defeat in Parliament. And it was Easter.

The media immediately got the political importance of the Bill being drawn and there was wall-to-wall coverage of the Bill over the Easter break.

It captured the imagination of the New Zealand public – finally, something to be excited about rather than to be worried about.

I guess the Crosby Textor office was closed over Easter, because for four whole days the Government said nothing. They were either all on holiday or paralysed by having no-one to tell them what to say.

So for four glorious days, I got to promote the many merits to families, children, employers and the NZ taxpayer of extending paid parental leave to 26 weeks.

And then when the Government finally found its voice, Bill English said it was going to cost $500m over three years and he would use a financial veto to make sure it didn’t go ahead.

This trumped up costing was designed to kill off the public enthusiasm for the proposal and frighten people into rejecting it.

It didn’t work.

A few weeks later, TV One reported their poll of 1000 people showed 62% supported Labour’s proposal and that more than 50% of National voter agreed too.

The polling question used the frightening and false figure of $500m (it turned out the Bill was costed at $276m over 3 years) during a global financial crisis and still people wanted it.

And so my faith in the collective wisdom of the people was restored.

I feel proud to be a representative of a country where people embrace the value of early investment in children rather than paying for bad outcomes later on.

I am delighted that people saw through the Government’s scare tactics.

I am pleased that Labour’s campaign has forced the Government into extending paid parental leave to 18 weeks.

I am fortunate that the Bill has now got a second chance to be debated after it was finally defeated 60-60 at third reading, just prior to National losing the Northland by-election.

As the Bill is about to make its way back into the House for a second reading (again) we will soon see if the government will use the extreme measure of a financial veto against families and the 99.94% of submitters who support it.